I do not own Harry Potter or any of any of its world or characters

This story jumps around in time a lot and mostly follows canon events but from Ron's perspective. I hope you enjoy the tale.

—-

1989

Ron Weasley was the last wizard standing and was surrounded by dozens of Death Eaters, but he had gotten out of worse situations before. He rolled out of the way of the two blasting curses sent from behind him and used the momentum to redirect a cutting curse into an unsuspecting Death Eater. Curses and hexes were being traded back and forth but Ron was slowly bringing his enemies down. Suddenly an evil, maniacal laugh erupted from behind him.

"You dare to stand against me?"

Lord Voldemort had arrived on the scene and the Death Eaters ceased their fighting to bow. Ron gritted his teeth and turned around. It was always a close call whenever Voldemort himself decided to show, but Ron needed to be brave.

"Thought you'd finally come out of your hidey-hole eh? Do some actual work yourself?"

Voldemort's red eyes narrowed dangerously. "You fool! How dare you speak to me, the great and powerful, Lord Voldemort?" He paused to collect himself and plaster a sick smile on his face. "However, I am a magnanimous Lord. If you swear your loyalty to me, I will allow you to live and serve me."

Ron smirked. "As if I would ever join you, you tosser." Voldemort's smile faded.

"As you wish."

Ron was too slow to react to the tickling hex that was fired at him. He hated the tickling hex.

It was near three in the morning when Ron woke up from his dream and he was covered in sweat. Panting hard, he pushed himself off his bed and made his way downstairs to get some water. He had gotten to the base of the stairs when he heard crying coming from the kitchen. Why was anyone crying? The family had been celebrating Bill's graduation from Hogwarts earlier that night. Ron was confused and peeked into the kitchen to see what was going on.

His mother, Molly, was bent over and sobbing into her hands. A bottle of elf made wine was half finished next to her. Ron started forward. "Mummy, why are you crying?"

She looked up. "Oh Ronny. It's alright." She wiped away the tears and gave him a weepy smile. "Come over here to your mother." She patted the seat next to her and Ron sidled in.

"Your brother, Bill…." She began filling her wine glass up again. "... has decided he doesn't want to stay with us anymore and he's going to Egypt for a while."

Ron frowned and looked down at his feet. Bill had finally finished Hogwarts and Ron had been looking forward to having him at home. "But why is he going to Egypt?" Molly took a big gulp of her drink.

"Your brother wants to train to be a curse breaker. He wants to chase gold and treasure even though it's…. It's so dangerous… just to chase adventure. As if being home again wasn't good enough for him."

Ron's eyes widened. Dangerous? Was Bill going to die? His Mum must have seen his expression because she began to reassure him.

"It'll be ok Ronny. Your brother's an amazing wizard, passed all his N.E.W.T.s. It's just… I'll miss him so much while he's away."

Ron nodded but remained uneasy. Everyone was always saying what an amazing student Bill was but curse breakers died all the time, didn't they?

"You'll stay with your Mummy though, right Ron?" Ron looked up at his Mum. "You won't break your Mummy's heart?"

"Yeah Mum. I'll always stay with you. I'll be here at the Burrow forever."

—-

1990

"...and that's when Charlie swooped in like the maniac he is and grabbed the snitch from right in front of the other seeker's nose!" Fred exclaimed while mimicking grabbing a snitch from George's nose. Ron and Ginny cheered and looked over at his brother who was grinning.

"Alright, alright you guys. Settle down before Mum comes in and yells at us. Hey Ron, you want to play some chess? Bill was saying you were getting pretty good." Ron whooped and grabbed the weathered family set from beneath the family room table.

"At least he's good at something." Fred started. "Rubbish at Quidditch isn't he?" George finished.

"Oi! I'm pretty good at being a keeper!" Ron responded angrily. "You guys never let me play chaser anyways."

"Doesn't matter, does it?" Fred again. "There's no way you're taking over Wood's position. He's Captain and will be for the next five years probably. Team's rubbish without Charlie. Even then, you're never making it onto the team ickkie little Ronnikens." The twins started laughing and Ron slumped onto the couch dejected.

Charlie glared at the twins and they ran off. "Hey, it's alright. They're not as good as being Beaters as they think they are anyways. C'mon… let's play some chess."

Ron perked up. He was good at chess at least.

—-

1991

The Burrow was in chaos, but Ron couldn't be more excited. He was getting his wand today and the whole family was taking a trip to Diagon Alley. Well, except for Bill and Charlie who were already working abroad. His Mother had had a huge fit when Charlie decided to run off to Romania to work with dragons, but he had stood his ground. Ron ran downstairs to the kitchen where he found his Mother at the table which was filled with parchments with lists and numbers and a big map of Diagon Alley.

"What are you up to Mum?"

She looked up at him. "Oh Ronald. Come over here for a moment and help your Mother out for a minute." Ron moved next to her and studied the parchment. On it were lists of school supplies, grocery supplies, potion supplies, and other miscellaneous things.

"What is all this?" Ron asked.

"Well…. I want to be able to get everything we need today in one trip, but some of the stores are quite far from each other and have weird hours. Gladys's Bargain Magical Goods closes at 2pm, can you believe it?"

Ron nodded and studied the map and the lists and the store hours. "It's easy Mum, look. We just have to go to these stores first, but Dad will have to split up from us while we get the potion stuff so he can get the floo powder. We have enough gold here to buy that stuff before we go to Gringotts and the rest is easy."

"It's that chess brain of yours Ronald. Nothing you can't figure out when you put your mind to it." Molly smiled proudly at him. "I couldn't believe it when you started beating your older brothers."

Ron smiled back when he was suddenly covered in some sort of black and yellow ooze.

"FRED! GEORGE! You clean your brother up this instant!"

—-

"It's that chess brain of yours, Ronald. Nothing you can't figure out when you put your mind to it."

Ron prayed his Mother's words were true as he walked over to take the space of the knight.

Snape was definitely at the Philosopher's Stone by now and they had no time to waste. Harry had to stop him and Hermione needed to be next to him to figure out whatever the hell the next room held for them.

So he had taken the space of the knight. He had seen which of the pieces had been destroyed from the last game before the pieces had reset themselves and he had a pretty good idea of how the magical chess board liked to play. Ron knew there was a good chance he was going to have to sacrifice himself for the checkmate.

He took a huge breath and stepped onto the space.

—-

1992

"You're going to need to pick up some more overtime Arthur, we're not selling as much from the orchard this year and Hogwarts bills are…"

"I know, I know. But there's a limit to what I can do. Malfoy has got Fudge and the Wizengamot cutting budgets to all "superfluous" departments. If I push too hard, I'll get fired."

Ron could hear his mother sigh as he listened on the other side of the door. "We'll just have to start budgeting even tighter. Thank Merlin, Bill and Charlie are making decent money and can take care of themselves but…"

"We still need the extra Galleons. Of course, dear."

Ron decided he had heard enough and made his way back upstairs and into his room.

"Hey mate, you alright?"

Ron looked up to see Harry looking at him worriedly.

"Yeah, yeah. All good. Go back to sleep."

Ron climbed into his own bed and started thinking of ways he could start making some money.

—-

1994

"Eternal glory! …and 1000 Galleons! Think of what you could do with all that money!" Ron exclaimed loudly from his bed.

"I'm thinking Harry here couldn't care less about the money. He just wishes a certain Chinese witch was paying attention to him." Dean teased from across the dorm.

Harry turned scarlet. "Whatever. Like you're hoping Ginny was paying attention to you?"

Ron turned around angrily. "Oi! What's that supposed to mean?" Dean looked nervous and was quickly shaking his head.

"It's nothing, mate. Harry's just trying to turn the tables on me when he's the one who wants to be champion to impress Cho." Harry rolled his eyes as Seamus dramatically grabbed on to him.

"Oh Harry… my champion! Take me into your skinny, twig-like arms!" Everybody in the room except for Harry burst out laughing.

"Well, it would work, wouldn't it? She's not likely to notice me otherwise right?" It was Neville's turn to roll his eyes.

"Yeah, whatever Mr. Boy Who Lived."

"Imagine fancying the only girl in the school who doesn't care that he's famous." Dean quipped and they all burst into laughter once again.

Thirty minutes later, as Ron drifted off into sleep, he thought once again of all he could do with all that money.

—-

Why was Ron such a coward when he was a Gryffindor? He looked across the room at Hermione. She pulled a stray hair out of her eyes as she poured over a book on unique magical sounds. How was he supposed to ask her to the Yule Ball when she was worried about Harry so much? He wondered if Harry had started feeling any kind of way about Hermione.

It wouldn't surprise Ron after their stupid ride on the stupid hippogriff to save stupid Sirius. Cho was unavailable but Harry could have any girl he wanted. He saw Lavender batting her eyelashes at Harry but he didn't seem to notice. Merlin, he could be oblivious and Lavender was the hottest girl in their year. Still, Hermione was looking cuter now that she had her teeth shrunk and Harry had never mentioned thinking of Hermione that way.

He spotted his opportunity some days later.

"Hey Hermione, you're a girl."

Hermione glared at him. "Oh, well spotted Ron."

Ron flinched, but he couldn't let this opportunity pass.

"Well, you could take one of us, couldn't you?" He prayed she wouldn't want to go with Harry.

"As it turns out, somebody else has already asked me." Ron's heart dropped past his stomach and his heart was beating faster than it ever had before and his ears were ringing so hard he had become dizzy and he just had to know.

"You're joking right Hermione? Who would ask you?"

The look Hermione gave him made him never want to crawl out of the safety of his bed ever again.

—-

1995

"So… Prefect patrols…" Merlin, why was this so awkward? Probably because Harry should have been Prefect instead. Hermione smiled nervously at him.

"Yes… It's a little strange to be spending all this time without Harry, isn't it?"

Ron frowned. The three of them had been inseparable since their First Year. But it had always been the three of them. Spending time alone with Hermione was nice, but would they get along without Harry playing referee?

"Still, Harry has been quite melodramatic this year, hasn't he?" Hermione continued, perhaps sensing some discomfort. "It'll be nice to spend some time with just the two of us. Even if we're supposed to be looking out for troublemakers."

Ron perked up. "Yeah, it'll be real nice."

Two months later, they were once again checking broom closets for students looking to snog in a private place. The thought of being in a closet with Hermione made his face redden.

"Scheduling the meetings for D.A. has proven trickier than I thought." Hermione mused. "So many different schedules and everyone is demanding different days. It's gotten to be a bit much."

Ron thought about it. "Well, the Quidditch teams are going to want more practice if they have a match coming up, but the upper years still need a lot of time out to revise for their classes. I'm betting if we sat down with the Captains, we could work out a schedule. I know Angelina wants to get Os on her Potion and Charms N.E.W.T.s so she's going to put time aside for that. I think the Hufflepuff Captain wants to do a mastery in Transfiguration with McGonagall so their schedules won't conflict too much. Then, we just have to get Ravenclaw to share, but they like to revise all the time anyways. As for all the clubs, they meet every week, but the only really important meets happen during tournaments or something. People can skip a couple times to make time for D.A. …Hermione?"

She had stopped walking and looked at him stunned. "How did you know all that?" Ron laughed.

"I dunno. I guess I just hear things and then my dumb chess brain just calculates it all." She smiled sweetly at him.

"There is nothing dumb about you Ron Weasley." Ron smiled back. "So you can stop trying to copy my notes and do the work yourself."

Ron faked a groan and gave her a playful push. She laughed. "Don't push me, you prat!" She pushed him back hard and his head hit a section of a stone statue that was jutting out. He winced as he touched the back of his head.

"Merlin, I'm sorry Ron. Are you Ok?" She had stepped close and was rubbing the back of his head. She was much too close now and Ron gulped.

"Yeah… I'm alright. All better now."

They looked each other in the eyes and slowly leaned in.

—-

"We don't have time to wait, Ron! Sirius is being tortured right now!"

Ron sucked in a breath. Harry was furious but Ron knew if they went barging in without a plan, they would probably all be dead before the night was out. He looked over to Ginny who was nervously looking back and forth between the two of them.

"I know, Harry. But we have to get our bearings and we have to have a plan for when things go sideways. Look, we've been in seven rooms so far. This room with the veil seems to be the center point for the whole Department of Mysteries. This is where we meet back up afterwards. If we need to hide or retreat, we can use the cover of the other rooms and then sneak back into this center room."

Harry stared at him hard. "Fine, but make it quick or I'm moving on without you guys."

Ron seized the opportunity. "Ok, if you're in the room with the brains, you're going to want to take the red door to get back to the veil room. The blue door will take you back to the room with the stars where there's a lot of big instruments to hide and take cover behind…."

Five minutes later, everyone nodded in agreement and hurried towards the last door… the one to the Room of Prophecies. Ron sighed and began after the rest of the group when Hermione grabbed his hand from behind.

"We're going to make it out of here right? It wasn't a mistake to come here was it?" Ron had never seen Hermione looking so frightened. He tucked a stray hair behind her ears and cupped her face.

"We're going to get Sirius and we're all going to get out of here. Believe in the plan."

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and nodded. "Ok Ron. I believe in you." She started towards the door.

Ron wished he was half as convincing to himself as he followed behind.

—-

1996

The chorus of 'Weasley is our King' rang and echoed throughout the common room. Ron was being carried by his brothers and he had never felt such joy and adrenaline coursing through his system. He had played the most miraculous game of his life and he felt like he could conquer the world. He was let down on the couch where he took one step onto the back cushion and let out a war cry and thunderous applause followed.

He turned around to see Lavender Brown stand up on the couch next to him. Merlin's Beard, she was gorgeous and curvy in all the right places and she was in his arms now and on his lips and her tongue was swirling in his mouth and he felt like every nerve in his body was on fire. He broke off the kiss and looked around the room, high on ecstasy, until his eyes landed on Hermione.

Hermione, who's eyes were brimming with tears and had now turned to quietly exit the room. The world turned to static. He was looking around and everyone was cheering and clapping in slow motion as his stomach was going into freefall. Lavender grabbed his hand. "Come on Ron, I know where we can go somewhere more private." Ron nodded dumbly as he was guided towards the very room that Hermione had just exited through. Ron's mind was racing.

It was going to be ok right? He and Hermione had agreed not to talk about their kiss and sure, she had asked him to Slughorn's party and they had been awkwardly flirting with each other in between their daily quarrels, but they weren't together or anything. She couldn't be that mad, could she?

A flock of conjured birds answered his question moments later.

—-

Ron had thought Lavender was a beautiful girl, but the vision of Hermione sitting by his side as he woke up in the Hospital Wing had eclipsed the other girl by leagues. Sunlight dappled through her frizzy earthy hair and shone like diamonds but nothing lit up the room like her smile which radiated warmth and light.

He knew he had made a mistake and he knew he was going to do whatever it took to fix it.

—-

Ron's whole body was on edge as he sat around the corner from the Room of Requirement on the seventh floor. A few hours earlier, members of the Order of the Phoenix had come upon Ron using the marauders map to figure out where to send D.A. members to defend the castle. They had initially been told to go to bed but after some arguing, they decided that students could be paired up with the Order members for support since there were hardly enough Order members to cover the whole castle. Hestia Jones was the brains behind battle strategy for the Order and worked with Ron to get everyone positioned.

"Ron, stop. You're going to break the vial of Felix Felicis." Ron looked at Hermione and released the vice grip he had had on the bottle. She was right. A sharp imprint of the bottle had been etched into his hand. He shook his head.

"What if I'm wrong about something? What if they get in some other way that I haven't thought of? What if people get hurt because of me? Merlin Hermione, people are preparing to fight to hold positions I told them to. What was I thinking?"

Hermione rubbed his back and spoke soothingly. "Your plan is a good one Ron. You saw choke points and important positions that even Hestia didn't see. Everyone is going to be alright and it'll be because of you… ok? I believe in you." Ron smiled weakly.

"Yeah, ok. And maybe nothing is going to happen tonight. Harry's gut has been wrong before."

At that moment, the door to the Room of Requirement flew open with a bang and they were engulfed in instant Peruvian darkness. He reached into his pocket and used the charmed Galleon to warn the others.

Ron prayed they would all get through this night in one piece.

—-

1997

"We can't keep stumbling around in the dark like this Harry! We're going to die of starvation at this point!" Ron bellowed across the tent. Harry sneered back at him.

"Did you think you would be staying at five star hotels this entire time? That you would be back home by Christmas?"

"I thought you knew what you were doing! I thought Dumbledore would have left you a clue or something. I thought we would be making some damned headway but it's been months and all we've done is chip away at our supplies. How are we supposed to find any damned Horcruxes when we spend all our time setting up the tent in different places? We need to set up a permanent base camp or else contact the Order for help. We need supplies, we need food, we need intel and information."

"I've told you that it's too risky, Ron! Why don't you ever listen to me? If we fail, we're going to doom the whole world to You-Know-Who!" Ron shook his head.

"We are going to fail if we keep going on this path! We need to reconnect with others. I haven't heard from my family in ages."

"If you're so worried about your family, why don't you just go back to them! You can hide at the Burrow with your Mummy and Daddy. I'm sure Ginny will be thrilled that her brother is a coward!" Ron gritted his teeth.

"My family is everything to me, Harry! And they're your family too! We took you in when you had no one else and this is how you treat us? You break Ginny's heart so you can stare angrily at a locket for weeks on end?" Harry drew his wand and Ron drew his in response.

Hermione finally interjected. "Will the two of you please stop?! It's the Horcrux making you two like this. We all need to be on the same team. Please…."

But Harry continued. "If Ronnikens wants to leave so bad because he can't stand a little camping, he's welcome to give up and go home. This wouldn't be the first time would it?"

Ron's eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean that instead of being a good mate like you were supposed to, you stopped talking to me for months because you were so jealous I was in the Triwizard Tournament. You do remember that, don't you?"

"You told me that you wanted to join to impress Cho, you giant prat. What the hell else was I supposed to think? We all thought Dumbledore pulled some strings to get his golden boy into the tournament. I was the one who needed the money for my family, you just wanted the attention as if you didn't have enough of it!"

"Fuck you, Ron!" Harry fired a bludgeoning curse at Ron but Hermione cast a protective shield between the two boys. "Enough!" She screamed and looked uneasily between the two of them.

"Yeah… It is enough. I'm out of here. Harry is going to lead us to our deaths." Ron went to pack what few possessions he had when he noticed that Hermione hadn't moved an inch from where she had stood earlier.

"Hermione, aren't you coming?" She looked at him with tears in her eyes and Ron knew the answer.

He would be leaving here alone.

—-

Ron sighed as he lit the stove to boil some water. It had been a difficult few months since he had left Harry and Hermione. He had spent a week avoiding snatchers until he eventually made his way to Shell Cottage with Bill and Fleur. He found an Order of the Phoenix that was still active but was so busy putting out small fires, they couldn't see the big picture.

Hestia Jones was overwhelmed and was barely managing to keep the Order together with Kingsley as the new de facto leader. Ron had come in at the perfect time to help out and before he knew it, he was running things side by side with Hestia and Kingsley. It was slow going at first, but the Order had become much better organized and had much safer ways to communicate and complete their missions.

Thank Merlin for Hermione's protean charm. It turned out that none of the Order members could figure out how to cast it on Galleons. They were now smuggling dozens of Muggleborn families out of the country and regularly hitting Death Eater supply routes and camps. Bill entered the kitchen as Ron poured water into his tea.

"You know you could get Dobby to do that for you." Ron smiled.

"Yeah, I know. Feels good to do it by myself though. Besides, he's on a mission right now with Kingsley." Bill nodded and accepted a cup of tea from Ron. Dobby had joined the Order when they reconnected with Aberforth who was now the liaison for all things Hogsmeade. It turned out that everyone had underestimated House Elf magic and the Death Eaters had no idea how to deal with it. Ron squeezed every advantage he could out of that fact and had grown quite close to the crazy little elf since.

"I just wanted to say…" Ron looked up at his older brother. "I'm so proud of what you've been doing for the Order, Ron. I know I wasn't so kind to you when you showed up having left Harry but what you've done for the Order... No one else could have done it. Kingsley and Hestia were barely keeping everyone together and a lot of people had given up. I just… I couldn't be more proud to be your brother Ron."

Ron was speechless. He had looked up to his older brother his entire life and didn't know what to say. So they said nothing and sipped on their teas instead. There was an easy silence in the room when Dobby loudly apparated in.

"Masters Weasley and Weasley! We've found the great Harry Potter!"

"Where is he, Dobby? Is Hermione with him?"

"They are together, but they are in trouble. The Death Eaters have them at Malfoy Manor."

Ron paled. A raid on Malfoy Manor had been in the planning stages for weeks, but there was huge risk involved in such a daring attack. With Dobby's help, they could get a few people in without detection, but revealing they could do so would mean that their enemies would strengthen their defenses and there probably would be no next time. Ron made his decision.

"Bill, grab Remus and Kingsley. They're on standby. We're going in for them."

—-

Hermione had slapped him hard. Very hard.

The reunion following the raid on Malfoy Manor had been filled with grief and tumultuous emotions and sharings of strange tales. Dobby had been killed during the extraction and Harry and Ron had chosen to dig the grave together. It seemed that with every stab of the shovel into the earth, the two of them were putting aside the fight they both regretted and starting to mend fences. By the end of it, they had hugged and cried and were best mates again like nothing had even happened. Hermione on the other hand… that would take more time. Ron had missed out on a lot of hard times.

A disastrous trip to Godric's Hollow had left Harry's wand broken without repair. They had spent weeks traveling around until, by some miracle, a deer patronus mysteriously appeared and led Harry to a frozen lake where the Sword of Gryffindor lay on the bottom. Only Harry would be daft enough to jump in with the Horcrux around his neck. He had awoken with the sword of Gryffindor in his hand and obliviated memories. That was one Horcrux down, at least.

Then, there was a trip to Luna's fathers house in a bid to learn about the Deathly Hallows. Hermione didn't think much of it but Ron knew there was always a little bit of truth to old Wizard stories. A narrow escape from Xenophilius's betrayal at the Rookery had led them straight into some snatchers who then took a disfigured Harry and injured Hermione to Malfoy Manor.

The tragic death of Dobby aside, the raid couldn't have gone any better. They had gotten Griphook, Luna, and Ollivander out of the basement while Harry, Ron, Kingsley, and Remus snuck upstairs and got the jump on the Death Eaters as they were preoccupied watching Hermione be tortured. Pettigrew had been viciously cut in half by Remus as Kingsley threw a nasty curse at Bellatrix which would put her out of commission for a few days. Harry had even managed to sneak up on Draco and punch him in the face to take his wand. Dobby had been carrying Ron back to Shell Cottage when he saw the unmistakable green light hurtling towards them. There was nothing Ron could have done.

"So, Gringotts…"

In the room were Ron, Hestia, Kingsley, Remus, Bill, Fleur, Harry, Hermione, and Griphook. Ron wasn't sure if it was even possible, but if there was any group of people who was capable of planning a heist into one of the most secure vaults known to Wizard kind, it would be this one.

"Let's get started. We currently have six doses of Polyjuice potion and access to Harry's cloak…"

—-

2000

"Hey Ron! Kingsley's here and he wants to talk to you!"

Ron levitated the boxes of merchandise he had been bringing into the back of the store down and headed into the office. It had been three years since Harry had defeated Voldemort and Ron's life finally seemed to have reached a quiet tranquility. The grief had been overwhelming since the immense loss from the final battle. Remus, Tonks, Colin, Lavender, and countless others. But nothing had been the stab in the gut like seeing Fred's body lying deathly still in the Great Hall. There had been a lot of difficult days at the Burrow, but slowly, everyone began to heal. Ron started helping out at the twin's store and it turned out that they needed a lot of help.

Brilliant inventors as they were, they did not make good businessmen. Ron learned a lot on the job about dozens of specialized suppliers, patents and permits, various Ministry Departments and how they were important, confounding business law and even more confounding tax law.

He now had hundreds of contacts that helped build Weasley Wizarding Wheezes to be one of the premiere businesses in Wizarding Britain. The store continued to sell novelty joke items to Hogwarts kids but there was now a slew of different departments designing and creating cutting edge potions, defensive gear and ward systems.

"Kingsley… Hestia… it's great to see you two again." Ron slid behind his desk and motioned for them to sit too. "It's been far too long. What brings the Ministry of Magic and his senior strategist over?"

Kingsley smiled mysteriously. "Well… we were thinking…"

—-

"...and then Kingsley asked me to join his team as a strategist. I guess Hestia is looking to retire and they want someone they trust to take over in a few years." Ron was at the Burrow and sitting with George and Angelina as they waited for dinner to be finished.

Bill worked as a curse breaking consultant when he wasn't with his Fleur and his family. Charlie was traveling the world teaching Ministries everywhere on how to properly care for and hide their dragons. Percy was working with his father in the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects which had greatly expanded since the war. Ginny was close to becoming a starter on the Holyhead Harpies. Harry was a superstar Auror and Hermione was senior legal counsel to the Minister. It seemed like everyone had moved on from the Burrow to bigger and better things.

George nodded thoughtfully.

"Are you thinking of taking the position? It would be wicked. Hestia is great of course but they're really having trouble getting the votes together to push the Muggleborn rights they're pushing for."

Ron paused. "I dunno. It would be great working with Hermione since she's on his staff and Kingsley is pushing for really important policies, but… I dunno if I could leave you guys. The store and Mum… I think she still needs me to be around."

"Don't you dare use me as an excuse, young man." Ron turned around in surprise to see his mother looking at him sternly.

"But…"

"Me either. The store is running smooth as can be now and there are people taking care of all the day to day stuff." George cut Ron off. "We can take care of ourselves, you know. The Burrow and the store… it'll always be there, but the world needs you to make it a better place. Only you can do it, Ron. You're the only Weasley who can. It's that brilliant chess brain of yours. "

Ron was flabbergasted. He was a Wizard who had never even finished his final year at Hogwarts and was married to one of the most brilliant witches in Britain, best mates with the savior of the Wizarding World, and runt of the family of brilliant Wizards and Witches who were leading their respective fields. What did he have to offer?

"Good thing too because you're still rubbish at Quidditch." Everyone burst into laughter and Ron put on a small smile as he took a sip of firewhiskey. Guess he had something to offer after all.